James S. Case

[Dave Taylor]

The playbill Mr. Case discusses is currently in possession of the Rosenbach Museum & Library in Philadelphia. Despite the wonderful provenance of having a sworn affidavit by John Ford stating that he picked the playbill up from under Lincoln's rocker, the playbill is not a genuine one from that night. Instead it is a Buckingham reprint. The Rosenbach Museum has an interactive site of the playbill here:
http://www.21stcenturyabe.org/2009/01/07...bill-1865/

Not knowing that it was a reproduction at the time, Tarbell would use the image of Case's playbill in her book, The Life of Abraham Lincoln: http://books.google.com/books?id=-bUTAQA...&q&f=false (Page 35)

LincolnMan, I discussed the Ford's Theatre assassination playbills in a post on my blog if you want to learn more: http://boothiebarn.wordpress.com/2012/06...playbills/

John Ford clearly perjured himself when he made his affidavit to this playbill's authenticity. He was in Richmond when Lincoln was assassinated and didn't get back into town until Monday. Between the assassination and Ford's return to his theatre, many people had rifled through the box taking souvenirs. There's no way any playbill would have been left in the box by the time he got there.